GameDev.net Spotlight

Getting Started

So you want to break into the video game industry (you want a game biz job). First, you have to know which type of job you want -- if you don't know which you want, you need to read about the game industry and the types of jobs in it. Then you might need to make a decision. Third, you need to be qualified for the job. Fourth, you need to know how to find information and how to ask good questions (you need to not ask bad questions). Finally, we have tips for getting the job.

I am currently in process of reorganizing my portfolio site as I am looking to get into a junior generalist or gameplay programmer position and I am curious to what are some of the key programming techniques , or examples recruiters would be interesting in seeing. To give a little background info I am a mid twenty's new grad B.S Software Engineering student looking for my first full time job in the industry. I have 5+ years work experience outside of the industry working in technical positions , (so I am experience working in a professional environment, but as far as industry cred I know this may mean little if anything at all. ). Currently I plan to have a few tech DirectX level demo's showing off various rendering techniques for a side project game engine I am working on for experience. I also plan to have a full space shooter clone game with all the bells and whistle ( menu's, highscores, etc). All these will be done in C++ except for maybe a C# demo I may throw in to display my actionscript 3.0 skillset with Unity Scaleform integration. I have more older projects I can use but I want to show off what my current skillset is, not what I have done in the past so I am going for a quality over quantity approach so I want to limit my portfolio to a best of. Any suggestions would be appreciated and if you have any leads that will be out at GDC this year I would definitely love to talk more.

I also plan to have a full space shooter clone game with all the bells and whistle ( menu's, highscores, etc).

It's not clear from that whether you're already planning to, but there's something to be said for having a released game. If you can get your space shooter clone out on the Android/iOS app store, then it shows you've got that all-important finishing skill.

I also plan to have a full space shooter clone game with all the bells and whistle ( menu's, highscores, etc).

It's not clear from that whether you're already planning to, but there's something to be said for having a released game. If you can get your space shooter clone out on the Android/iOS app store, then it shows you've got that all-important finishing skill.

this is something I will consider , but I really haven't commit to it as quality of some art assets I use are not really production quality , but its not out of question for me to replace them with some production quality assets.